quarta-feira, abril 14, 2004
The Iraq war is winnable, but not by the U.N
The latest old advice, including from John Kerry, is to turn it all over to the United Nations. It's hard to know what specifically proponents mean by this, since the current U.N. presence in Baghdad consists only of political envoy Lakhdar Brahimi. If Mr. Brahimi can serve as an honest broker among Iraqi factions, then he might do some good. Then again, Jim Hoagland of the Washington Post reports that he began a meeting with the Iraqi Governing Council by declaring that he came "as a brother Arab"--in the presence of two Kurds and a Turkoman member.
A broader U.N. mission fled Iraq the first time it was attacked last year, and only yesterday Kofi Annan ruled out sending "a large U.N. team" for the "foreseeable future" for security reasons. That means U.S. soldiers would still do the fighting, albeit under U.N. command. Pakistani U.N. troops sat in their barracks while Army Rangers took casualties in Mogadishu, and Dutch U.N. soldiers let the Serbs drag Bosnian men off to their deaths in the "safe" zone they controlled in former Yugoslavia. The last thing U.S. military officers need is to have their plans for controlling Fallujah overruled by some U.N. political actor answerable to the French and Russians.
It's also far from clear that Iraqis would welcome control by the same U.N. that administered the corrupt Oil for Food program that enriched Saddam Hussein. If the price of U.N. involvement is to sweep the Oil for Food scandal under the carpet, then Iraqis would be justifiably furious.
posted by Miguel Noronha 4:08 da tarde
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